


The Stomach For It

by fideliant



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Courtship, Cultural Differences, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Food, Humor, M/M, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-03-08 23:03:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3226784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fideliant/pseuds/fideliant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Bilbo Baggins likes food very much, but Thorin Oakenshield seems determined to change that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Stomach For It

The Thing on the plate is dead. At least, that’s what Bilbo hopes. From the many blackened bits sticking out of it, he half-expects it to start rising up and moaning to be put out of its misery.

Thorin, still holding the plate out and looking at him grumpily, says, “You’re welcome.”

Bilbo blinks, and hm, that doesn’t clear things up very much, not really. “Oh,” he says first, and, “Thank you,” because manners always matter, but he still doesn’t know what Thorin’s expecting him to do with that Thing which looks like it’s come from a cow in all the wrong ways.

Thorin inclines his head in that regal manner he always has, produces a spoon, and Bilbo’s heart plummets, because oh, now he knows exactly what Thorin means, and in the exact same breath, there goes that excuse. "It’s going cold,” Thorin says, holding out the spoon too.

“Um.” Very hesitantly, Bilbo takes the plate and spoon and stares at the Thing. For some reason he doesn't want to think too much about, he can very much imagine it staring right back at him. “What, er. What is it, Thorin?”

“Ham hock. I made it.”

Bilbo honestly doesn’t doubt the latter part of Thorin’s statement, but the Thing is absolutely not a ham hock. He explicitly knows this because it’s one of his absolute favourite foods and he has made it countless times over himself to know a ham hock when he sees one. He has recipes. Illustrations, as a matter of fact. Actual ways that ham hocks should look before, during and after they’re cooked. Perhaps the lump of Thing on the plate he’s holding now had the potential to be a ham hock in its limited lifespan, but it sure as hell isn’t one now, not after whatever Thorin’s done to it.

“Oh. Okay.” Bilbo dips his spoon into the Thing, at once feeling very sorry for the utensil, and then he just feels sorry for himself at the way part of the Thing crumbles readily into bite-size pieces. It’s as though it _wants_ to be eaten, he thinks.

Thorin doesn’t leave, just keeps looking at him expectantly, and Bilbo gulps, his heart sinking impossibly lower. There’s a pretty small piece of Thing at the corner of plate; if he chews for his life, swallows as quickly as he can, maybe then, just maybe it won’t actually —

It does. Oh, gods have mercy, it _does_. The Thing tastes like it looks and chewing quickly gets him nowhere closer to getting rid of it because once he gets part the charred outer crust it’s the stringiest thing he’s ever had in living memory. He could bite into a leather belt and while the texture would be very much the same, he can’t help thinking that even that would taste infinitely better than _this_.

“Th — thanks, Thorin,” he wheezes, faking a grin while his stomach howls its betrayal.

Thorin doesn't smile but his eyes indicate he might, which is just as close as it usually gets when it comes to him. “It’s to your liking, then?”

Bilbo nods feebly as he pushes the plate back into Thorin’s hands and turns away to leave, mumbling about needing to do some dusting in his room when what he really intends to do is go down to the pantry to rinse out his mouth with heroic amounts of water and honey, and even then he’s not sure if that will be anywhere near enough.

 

***

 

The memory of having consumed even the tiniest part of the Thing stays with Bilbo over the course of the next few days, which manages to kill his appetite dead for first breakfast the next morning and luncheon the day after that. By day three, he feels just about well enough to return to his regular diet of seven meals a day, and because Bilbo is perpetually a victim of bad timing, this is when Thorin shows up outside his room with smoked kippers in tow.

Well, Bilbo uses the term ‘kippers’ quite liberally. They look more like Thorin’s allowed all that was left of the Thing to grow up into darker, kipper-shaped baby Things, and they smell even worse. Staring at the plate, Bilbo thinks his eyes might actually be watering.

“For you,” Thorin says gruffly, apropos of no other explanation at all.

Bilbo blinks at him, then at the miniature Things. “Wow,” he says, and finds that he means it, because honest to goodness, _wow,_ he definitely wasn’t expecting this. Not even in the slightest. “Uh. Thanks.”

“Straight from the kitchen,” Thorin says. He sounds too casual for a person holding a plate of what smells like kippers that haven’t been smoked, just allowed to go off and then basted with a mixture of liver oil and sour cream. The smell is horrendous, especially at this distance. Bilbo thinks they used to spray something similar-smelling in old hobbit holes back in Hobbiton to kill termites. “I thought you might be hungry.”

The thing is, Bilbo _was,_ but he isn’t thinking about that anymore. In fact, he had been planning to have second breakfast not ten minutes ago, but decided it more prudent to finish the chapter of the book he’s reading before going to grab food. Just goes to show that you should always trust your stomach over your mind, but it’s far too late for that now.

“I’ve a fork with me,” Thorin supplies, because _of course_ he does, the well-equipped bastard. “Here you go.”

It’s hard to keep himself from wrinkling his nose, but Bilbo manages it all the same as he accepts both fork and plate with a familiar sense of impending doom unfolding in his gut. Surely there will be a point in the next few seconds where he can retreat into his room, he thinks desperately, maybe throw the kippers out the window without Thorin noticing, but now Thorin is staring intently at him again with no indication of going away, and Bilbo feels his throat go dry.

That doesn’t even matter, in the end. The first chunk of kipper is oily and runny enough to slide down his throat without much chewing, but also somehow succeeds in lighting the inside of his nose on fire on its way down. He can both smell and taste onion and vinegar and something vaguely spicy that he isn’t sure he wants to be able to identify with certainty, and resolutely does not gasp with disgust when he swallows it whole and Thorin’s expression softens.

“That’s, gosh. Erm. That’s quite something, Thorin,” Bilbo says in lieu of anything else. He thinks he can sort of _feel_ the kipper too, now, rolling about his stomach like a wounded animal in the throes of death. Or perhaps his stomach is the wounded animal and the kipper’s the metaphorical arrow in its side. Could be either one, really.

“Would you like some more? I can make you another plate if you want.”

Bilbo clutches the plate with the remaining kippers against his belly and shakes his head, suddenly frantic. “No! Er, no. Don’t bother. I mean, I wouldn’t want to bother you, and, uh. This is plenty, really. Mm, yes. So, thanks very much!”

Thorin’s brow creases. “Are you sure? You usually eat much more than that —”

But Bilbo’s already reaffirming and bidding Thorin goodbye and closing the door in his face, and then he has to down cup after cup of lukewarm tea before the urge to retch finally passes. Even so, the oily feeling in his mouth lingers for hours into the day, and makes first lunch a very miserable affair for him indeed.

 

***

 

As the week goes on, Thorin continues the trend of making him food with rock cakes, chicken roulade, and roast potatoes. Possibly not in that order. It gets increasingly hard to tell what’s what when everything has the same lurid brown outer appearance, and as far as possible Bilbo tries to avoid having to eat any of it to confirm his individual suspicions. He manages to convincingly fake a bellyache with the supposed rock cakes and a newly-realised vegetarian existence with the chicken, but Bilbo can only think of so many lies in such a short period of time, and eventually Thorin corners him with a tray of the most ill-looking potatoes he has ever seen outside of a feeding trough.

Sometimes he’s far too polite for his own good, Bilbo thinks as he takes one. It would solve a lot of problems if he could say things like _no, I don’t bloody want to eat this,_ or _this smells like something the dog ate and then threw up,_ and above all else, _Thorin, I’m sorry, but you’re god-awful at cooking and it should be a capital offence for anyone to let you within ten feet of a stove, period._

But, aggravatingly, all he can bring himself to say is, “Thanks, Thorin.”

Thorin grunts. “Any time.”

The potato is foul, the potato is vile, and once his stomach has stopped flipping like a pancake Bilbo needs to have a bit of a lie down afterwards to try and forget about it. Several hours later, he still feels very green at the lunch table when the main course turns out to be none other than mashed potatoes.

 

***

 

He has no idea _why_ Thorin is doing this to him, is the thing.

Thinking about that begs the question as to whether or not Thorin has the taste buds of a sack of hammers. He definitely has the culinary skills of one, and it’s only natural that Bilbo wonders. If he’s trying to poison Bilbo he’s not being very efficient nor kind in his method of choice. While Bilbo’s seen what he’s capable of, it’s not at all like Thorin to be this cruel, or anyone for that matter, so he decides that it has to be something else entirely different.

He doesn’t even have that long to mull it over, because self-preservation kicks in after Thorin serves up a bowl of stewed asparagus that manages to be mushy and crunchy at the same time, and Bilbo stops wondering about how it all began and starts worrying about how he’s going to make it stop. In light of Bilbo’s newest excuse to keep from eating his food, Thorin’s main goal now appears to be to ruin him for as many of his most beloved vegetables in as short a time as possible, which is a huge problem given that he can’t eat meat in front of Thorin anymore and his green friends are pretty much all he has left.

With this perpetually in mind, Bilbo doesn’t mean to, but he estimates that at the rate Thorin’s going, he most likely will not be able to conscientiously eat anything in Erebor by the end of the month.

“Brussels sprouts with seared tomatoes and a butternut squash sauce,” Thorin announces as he puts the plate in front of Bilbo, and Bilbo’s stomach makes a groaning sound, the sort of noise that could be mistaken for an expression of hunger when all it’s trying to do is shrink in on itself and vanish entirely from the cruel, hard world of Thorin's home cooking. “Tuck in.”

More Things. Cousins of Things covered in other Things with essence of Thing. They’re not even trying to look different from each other anymore, Bilbo realises in horror. The sauce is the only component of the dish that looks remotely like what Thorin’s describing it to be, if Bilbo can just get past the pink bits floating in it and that he can almost smell cheese.

Did Thorin mention he put cheese in it? It's probably best not to ask.

“Thanks,” Bilbo mumbles, and thinks wistfully, _t_ _here goes afternoon tea._

The corners of Thorin’s mouth lift ever so slightly, and Bilbo knows that breaking down into tears and begging to be spared will most certainly have the opposite effect, so he picks up his fork and eats without saying anything else.

 

***

 

The closet door opens, letting in a brief burst of light, and Bilbo reaches out to yank the offending dwarf in, fast as a viper, and kicks the door shut again.

“Ow! What the —”

“Shhh.”

A pause fills the darkness of the broom closet they’re wedged in. “Bilbo?” Balin.

“Shhhhhh,” Bilbo repeats, clamping his hand over Balin’s mouth and listening with his ear against the door.

“Mmmph?”

“Thorin,” Bilbo hisses urgently back at him. “Is he out there?”

“Mmmf.”

“What?”

“Mmmmmmph.”

“Oh. Sorry.” He releases the dwarf but keeps his ear to the door. Bilbo can’t hear anything, but that just makes him all the more edgy. Half an hour of fighting the urge to sneeze and cough in a very dusty broom closet tends to do that to a person.

“What,” Balin begins, and lowers his voice to a whisper when Bilbo shushes him again, “are you doing in here?”

“Thorin,” Bilbo answers, chancing a peek from behind the closet door. Nothing. He breathes a sigh of relief. Twenty more minutes to elevenses. He can do this.

“Thorin? What about him?”

“If he finds me, he’ll —” Bilbo stops talking when he hears a creak outside, and starts off on a new tangent when nothing else happens. “Thorin’s been _cooking._ ”

“Cooking?”

“Yes! Things! A lot of Things.” Bilbo waves his hands over his head to emphasise his distress and knocks over a broom leaning against the wall. “He’s making me… _eat_ them.”

“Oh, dear.” Balin’s tone is a mixture of concern and amusement. “I assuming Thorin isn’t the best at cooking.”

Understatement of understatements, Bilbo shakes his head vigorously in response.

“Have you told him?”

“Would _you?”_

Balin’s tiny grin is just about visible in the dim lighting. “Fair point.”

“What do I _do,_ Balin?” Bilbo wails, insofar as it is possible for one to wail whilst trying to keep their voice down.

“Well, I suppose you might —”

The closet door swings wide open on its hinges again, and is followed by the most disgruntled throat-clearing Bilbo’s heard in his life.

“Balin. Master Baggins,” says Thorin, wearing the look of one who speaks politely only because he must. “I did not mean to intrude.”

“Oh, not at all,” Balin replies immediately, the  _sorry_ clear in his brief glance sideways, and Bilbo feels the colour drain from his face. “I was just, hm. Getting a broom to clean my quarters with. Here’s one, so I shall be on my way, then…”

He squeezes out from the closet, broom in hand, and disappears down the hallway. Thorin’s gaze remains fixed on Bilbo, and Bilbo tries not to fidget under it. Should he come up with a similar excuse? Probably, for the incredibly likely scenario that Thorin pulls out a plate of goodness knows what and forces it on him. The broom’s already taken but there’s still the upturned bucket he was using for a stool in the corner; spilt something, was going to mop it up, yeah, that’ll do nicely.

“Have you been hiding from me?”

“No,” Bilbo blurts, and thinks, bucket, mop, _damn_ it, Baggins. “No. Whatever makes you say that?”

Thorin looks all the more moody at this, even for him. “If you had wished to reject my advances, you needed only have told me so.”

Bilbo gapes up at Thorin. “What?”

“Is it Balin? Has he made offerings that you found more satisfactory than mine, then?”

“Offerings?”

“You do not need to keep playing the fool,” Thorin says. The shape of his words is angry, but his voice is dejected as he speaks. “If he has propositioned you as I have and you have accepted, then I shall respect your decision. No more, no less.”

“What are you going on about?” Bilbo asks, now thoroughly confused. “No one’s propositioned whatever, and I haven’t accepted anything, Thorin. And, hold on, let’s go back for a bit — what do you mean by, advances?”

It’s Thorin’s turn to sport a perplexed look. “My offerings,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You told me that they were to your liking, did you not?”

“What? You mean the food?” Deciphering this much doesn't get Bilbo anywhere nearer to grasping either head or tail of what Thorin's talking about. “Um, yes, fine. But what does that have got to do with anything?”

“It is the custom of your people, is it not?” Thorin says sulkily. A pink tinge colours his cheeks beneath his thick beard. “To win the favour of those you would desire with gifts of fine food and drink?”

"Um. No, it's not."

"It… it's not?"

“Thorin…” Bilbo starts to laugh, because _now_ he understands just about enough to know what’s been going on, but Thorin appears to misread this.

“Is there something about me that you find amusing?” he asks hotly. “I shan't be made fun of — if you mean to mock me, I will not have any of it.”

“No, no, Thorin, I don’t mean that,” Bilbo says, waving a hand in a placating gesture. Or rather he hopes it possesses the capacity to placate; he’s giggling too hard to ensure that. “What I mean is that it’s very sweet of you, Thorin, it really is, and I, uh. I appreciate you cooking for me, but that's, no. It's nothing at all like that, really.”

Thorin’s mouth turns. “Explain.”

“Erm, well." Bilbo takes a deep breath. "Okay, yes, we like food — _I_ love food, as a matter of fact — and I suppose you probably could cook for someone to show that you fancy them, but it's not _the_ only way, if you get what I mean."

Thorin doesn't say anything, and his expression doesn't change, so Bilbo sighs and tries again.

"It's like, my dad built Bag End for my mum because he liked her, yeah?" he says. "And he also probably made her some other things, too, but my point is that she didn't say yes just because he brought her a stack of scones. That's pretty much it."

Still stony-faced, Thorin's eyes do darken with a hint of understanding, and he nods.

"Where did you get that whole food thing from, anyway?" Bilbo asks, curious.

“Fili and Kili,” Thorin mutters, his face a portrait of imminent nepoticide.

“Ah,” Bilbo says faintly. At the very least, now he knows who he’ll have to pay back for nearly a whole month of gastronomic cataclysm. Assuming that there’s anything left to work with after Thorin’s done with them, anyway.

“They assured me that they spoke true.”

"I imagine they did.”

Thorin grunts and looks at the floor and is quiet for a very long time.

“D’you… do you really fancy me, then?” Bilbo asks, to break the silence.

Thorin shuffles his feet and doesn’t look up, but the movement of his head could be vaguely construed as a nod.

Bilbo sighs, more out of endearment than frustration, and steps nearer to Thorin so he can look him in the face. His grumpy, morose, handsome face, and oh, he’s _handsome,_ isn’t he, just as he is whenever Bilbo gets this close of a look at him, or any look for that matter. There’s a certain ruggedness to his profile, a bony structure in his cheeks that usually comes off as menacing and almost dangerous at the worst of times, but right now Thorin’s just blushing like a hobbitling schoolboy and has his lips pressed firmly together, and he’s not even the slightest bit intimidating, just grizzled and glowering, and so very, very handsome.

He wonders about when he’d started thinking of Thorin as handsome.

“Well,” Bilbo starts, "if you wanted to know about how hobbits, um. Win favour, was it? You also could've just asked, you know."

Thorin flushes an even deeper shade of crimson. "I — I did not wish to be as direct as that."

Bilbo laughs, still much too amused for the moment. "Ah. Anyway, I can tell you that you had the right idea of going about it. And you've already made some good ground; after all, I did mention that I love food.”

Thorin raises his chin, just a little. “And you enjoyed my food very much, didn’t you?”

“Uh.” The memory of Thing bubbles back up with the queasy feeling in his stomach, and Bilbo suppresses a grimace. “I… well, I could tell that you put in a lot of effort. But you could be better, if I may be honest. Much, much better.”

“Perhaps I merely need someone to teach me,” Thorin says.

Bilbo winches up a smile as Thorin’s hands find his hips, and allows himself to be pulled closer. “Perhaps,” he agrees, and laughs when Thorin arches an eyebrow at him, doesn't make a sound against Thorin's surprisingly soft mouth.

He thinks they’ll probably start out with ham hock, but right now there are more important things to be taken care of.

**Author's Note:**

> Hm, yeah. I've no idea what's up with this one either ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
